Welcome the divine, creative spirit of Shakti

ADI SHAKTI, ADI SHAKTI, ADI SHAKTI, NAMO NAMO,

SARAB SHAKTI, SARAB SHAKTI, SARAB SHAKTI, NAMO NAMO,

PRITHUM BHAGAWATI, PRITHUM BHAGAWATI, PRITHUM BHAGAWATI,

NAMO NAMO,

KUNDALINI, MATA SHAKTI, MATA SHAKTI, NAMO, NAMO.

Another version with better vocals, but no embedding allowed. 

9 Ways to Welcome Spring with Very Little Green

Last month the gals at Hoop Dance Freak Flow shared 9 Ways to Clean-Up for the 2011 Hoop Season . The first couple suggestions included creating a rainbow hoop with left-over tape and donating beater hoops to neighborhood kids. Great ideas, for sure. Spring encourages us to unclutter, give, and breathe new life into winter's left-overs. The rest of the article, however, focused on new clothes, earrings, and hoops. While I love (and often covet) new hoop gear, the list struck me as kind of a bummer for folks in the broke-hooper camp. So here’s Tangled Macrame’s 9 Ways to Welcome Spring with Very Little Green.

1. Organize a free hoop-day in the park or find one near-by. If everyone contributes a little (snacks, hand-made prizes, ect), no one has to contribute a lot.

2. Practice tosses. There’s something sublime about a hoop hovering against blue sky.

3. Gather your hoop friends for a photo shoot.

4. Explore nearby state parks for a new space to play.

5. Hoop near or in the creek.

6. Organize a costume swap at your local hoop-jam. This might be fun before the photo-shoot!

7. Volunteer to teach hoop-dance at the Boys and Girls Club or another children’s summer program.

8. Visit your neighborhood Farmer’s Market…with hoops. Nothing refreshes the soul like fresh strawberries and hooping with Mennonite children.

9. Drink water!

Seeking "Real" Holidays

Ana Jarvis

Mother's Day. Easter. Independence Day. Christmas. Every year the blog-sphere echoes with the shrill voices of pundits lamenting the loss of "real" holiday spirit. Mother's Day, they warn has been co-opted by Hallmark. Ostara is about spring, not chocolate. Christmas celebrates Christ, not Santa.

On one hand, these objections rise out of a very real fear of consumerism. Mother's Day is, after all, one of the biggest spending holidays, and the holiday's founder, Ana Jarvis was was arrested for protesting an overly commercial Mother's Day Celebration in New York.

On the other hand, the desire to protect the "real" meaning of holidays arises from the same elitism that fuel debates about the "real" meaning of words. Language purists argue that people do not "share" on Facebook because sharing traditionally/technically "implies that one as the original holder grants to another the partial use, enjoyment, or possession of a thing." Sharing a slice of pie and distributing a video link, they argue, are two very different actions. I've heard a class of English majors explode with contempt for Alanis Morissette’s "Ironic." Nothing, they howl, in that song is ironic! They measure the song  by a single, literary definition of irony. Undoubtedly "Ironic" is not ironic like Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is ironic. Morissette does not the "use . . . words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning." She uses ironic like most folks use ironic in daily conversation: to describe "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result." **

Purists, defending both holidays and words, attempt to institutionalize an academic, traditional, or personal meaning at the expense of common usage. Yet if an idea isn't made "real" by every-day practice, what makes it real? Do people really want to surrender their traditions and language to an outside authority? The pundits and purists do holidays a disservice by implying that the ways well-meaning people celebrate is wrong. They characterize the loving daughter as a brain-washed, compulsive spender. They berate the chocolate bunny-eater as a heretic.

Holidays, like language, evolve. They change and grow with the people who celebrate them. Mother's Day emerges from the memories and experiences of people honoring their mothers, from a million tiny, personal traditions. Cards. Candy. Breakfast in bed. A white carnation. It's all good. It's all real.

Mary Cassatt's "Breakfast in Bed"

** Definitions from Merriam-Webster On-line

Mandala Monday - Hooping Mandala

We dance round a ring and suppose,

but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

-Robert Frost

In mandala mythology, the circle represents the universe. A single dot in the circle's center symbolizes the stillness at the heart of Creation. Hoopdance is a beautiful, moving mandala. When a hooper whirls a hoop around her body, she becomes the axis of the cosmos. The circle  of the hoop forms rings that mirror the levels of consciousness that pull the dancer toward or away from the sacred center. Hooping on the core, for example, draws the circle in. Off-body passes and moves like the helicopter expand the circle to embrace the outer-world. The dancer's hands and legs form smaller circles as he whirls, steps, and dances. These mandala-patterns become tangible in LED and fire-hoop photography. The steams of light map the journey of the hoop through space and the dancer through the act of creation.

Even when not in motion, hoops create sacred space. Their circles promise protection, unity, and evolution. I hang my hoops on my wall as living works of art. Each day they form different patterns in response to my dance. The curious thing is that their design reflects what I leave behind. While my pet-hoop rests, forgotten in the yard, the remainders are a reminder of my un-danced potential. They hold, ground, and nurture the whiling energy at the heart of the dance.

Twirling round with this familiar parable

spinning, weaving round each new experience.

Recognize this as a holy gift

and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.

-Tool

John Muir, Environmentalist

"The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains - mountain dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature's workshops." - John Muir

John Muir was born in Scotland to a harsh, orthodox father who forbid his children from reading anything but religious or practical books. Hard work, Muir's father believed, trumped childish curiosity. Nonetheless the irrepressible young Muir expanded his horizons with long rambles along the lakeside and books borrowed from friends. According to Mark R. Stoll , "Muir's intellectual horizons suddenly opened up at age fifteen when two neighbor boys with whom he was working recited to him their favorite poets--Byron, Poe, Wordsworth, Milton." Muir identified with the Romantic conceptualization of nature as a sublime reflection of humankind's moods and imagination. Years later at the University of Wisconsin, Muir discovered the American Transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson. He followed Thoreau's advice to keep a journal and described traveling into the wilderness with "only a tin cup, a handful of tea, a loaf of bread, and a copy of Emerson."

Deep in the heart of the mountains that became Yosemite National Park Muir fused naturalism and theology.  He wrote, "In God's wildness lies the hope of the world - the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware." Muir saw the wilderness as a temple and believed it should be preserved for the people, not exploited for short-term profit.

Muir became a champion for wilderness preservation, writing countless articles and co-founding the Sierra Club in 1892. In 1903 Muir and Theodore Roosevelt escaped the president's entourage and spent two nights camping in the Yosemite Valley. Muir hoped to "to do some forest good in talking freely around the campfire," with the president. As a result Roosevelt signed the Yosemite Recession Bill to bring Yosemite Park under national protection along with the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. Muir continued his work as an environmental advocate until his death in 1914. Today Muir is celebrated as the grandfather of the conservation movement. His work and writings are a reminder to "keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."

"The Ballad of John Muir" by The Black Irish Band 

Learn more:

Quotable passages by John Muir 

Muir's complete works 

Muir and the birth of the National Park system

John Muir National Historic Site 

"John Muir in the New World", film 

"Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter." 

-  John Muir 1924.

Beads Antique

Behold! The first piece of Tangled Macrame's summer collection: Beads Antique. Inspired by the crunchy, sexy sounds of Beats Antique, these tribal macramés are perfect for the dance floor. Embrace your dancing spirit with luscious copper charms and a carved tiger's eye pendant. They're yummy...I promise.

The whole set includes an anklet, necklace, armband, and earrings. They'll be available at Tangled Macramé on Monday.

Candy: a film by Chris Hughes

Yes, my family is brilliant.